14 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



near Sprottau. All these places are only the natural abodes of the 

 ancient elephant, where it found its food, consisting of species of 

 plants, which were not distinct from those that still flourish in these 

 localities. Such facts refute the groundless hypothesis, that the re- 

 mains of elephants were transported by great floods from distant re- 

 gions to the places where they are now found ; or that the species was 

 only enabled to exist in them by the influence of external causes or 

 great changes in climate. They also testify to the truth of a view 

 which I have long adopted, that there is some internal cause of this 

 phsenomenon, through which, even in historical times, the extinction 

 and geographical distribution of species have been limited. 



Goldfuss in his work on the Archegosaurus describes the skull 

 of an animal, from the stone-coal formation of Heimskirchen near 

 Kaiserslautern, which he names Sclerocephalus, as that of a fish. It 

 seems to me to have more resemblance to that of the Labyrintho- 

 donts than even the Archegosaurus, and consequently may as well as 

 this genus be added to the Saurians. 



Professor E. Schmid of Jena has recently entrusted to me his 

 whole collection of fossil vertebrate animals from the muschelkalk 

 of that district. To it was added two new species of Ammonites from 

 the celestine strata in the lower muschelkalk at Wogau ; one of them 

 is a very beautiful species which I have named A. [Ceratites) Wogau- 

 ensis. It is nearest the A. (Ceratites) enodis, Quenst., but is smaller, 

 and the back is not arched but acute, thus giving a diiferent cha- 

 racter to the sides ; it is perfectly smooth, and even the sutures do 

 not agree with those of the species compared with it. 



The remains of saurians in this collection formed a very accept- 

 able addition to my 'Monograph of the Saurians of the Muschelkalk.' 

 Previously I only knew from the vicinity of Jena those remains M^hich 

 Count Miinster had received from Professor Schmid ; and it is of 

 great importance that I now have the use of Schmid' s own collection. 

 The muschelkalk saurians of Jena were mostly of small dimensions ; 

 but one rib bespeaks a large animal. The collection contains the 

 humeri, always the most important bone, of eight smaller species, 

 belonging to more than one genus ; and the large rib indicates a 

 ninth species. Formerly I knew no humerus from the muschelkalk 

 in which the foramen for the passage of the ulnar artery was want- 

 ing ; but this is the case in one of the Jena bones, a circumstance 

 hardly accidental, as the bone otherwise indicates a peculiar species. 

 A humeral bone in the collection of Count Miinster also shows the 

 existence of another species, so that there were at least ten saurians 

 in the muschelkalk of Jena ; and among these humeri there is scarcely 

 one that agrees with the bones from Upper Silesia or other localities 

 in this formation. The coracoid bones in Schmid' s collection belong 

 to six species, two others are found in that of Count Miinster, and 

 this bone in the large species is still wanting ; so that the coracoid 

 bones from Jena also point to the existence of nine species, most of 

 them distinct from those of other districts. These collections contain 

 the scapulae of four small species, the femoral bones of three species, 

 and the pelvic bones of at least four species ; all, as well as the small 



